Root Digging and Family Spy Files
Poland, 2007
(Just a few weeks before Burning Man)
Root Digging
My father arrives in the dark at my house in Northern Virginia, three hours before our flight to Warsaw, Poland is scheduled to depart. Our journey is primarily to read through family spy files, released for the first time by the Polish government.
The drive to the airport is about 15 minutes and we arrive early. That’s his style. The potential of anything going wrong at the airport is to be avoided at all costs, even if I have to miss out on sleep. I’m used to passing hours in airports with him. We’re flying business class, so we have a lounge with free stale cookies and mixed drinks. But instead we choose to pace. We walk up and down the long hallways of Dulles Airport, with me having to take almost two steps to his every step. I don’t ask him to slow down. I want him to work out that excess energy, the anxiety that sits so deeply within him. We may potentially learn some very dark family history, potentially find out which friends were not really friends, find out what we still can’t even anticipate. Sometimes family secrets are best left in the past.
Once in Warsaw, we rent a small apartment that looks out onto the old castle courtyard, in historic old town. I stroll the streets in the evening for hours, listening to musicians at every corner and hearing the chatter of Polish lingering around me. I like how I don’t exist here. No one knows who I am or why I am here. I spend my mornings sitting in the large open window with a deep sill, hearing the sweeping of the streets, the click of high heels on the cobblestones below, the dance of pigeons on the rooftops. I look into the apartments across the way, and spend hours one evening watching a tall woman in white overalls paint the room a deep, dark blue. The voyeur in me is captivated in being able to look into these lives, so different from my own, simply because I was pulled out of all this at the age of three.
Family Spy Files
My father and I enter the silent high-ceilinged room where a stack of brown files tied with cream ribbons waits. The historian checks our passports, noting down the numbers and details carefully. He moves too slowly, as if building a tension that could only be broken by a group of men knocking down the door and dragging us to a holding cell. How many rooms out there contain as many secrets? Although I try to maintain my American sense of safety, I feel violated already. The eyes of the historian capture all the countless eyes that have been watching my bloodline for decades, pulling me into distant times of distrust until I feel like I’m alone in a strong sand-storm, with the tiny grains of sand grinding into my skin, my eyes, forcing me to curl up within my own body on the desert floor. The sand almost dulls my intrigue over the fact that I’m about to read late-night interrogations of my family members by the Polish secret police and by the KGB. The room’s large window overlooking a busy street reassures me, but the space holds a hint of burnt out homes, late night invasions, and musty smoked cigarettes.
My father arrives in the dark at my house in Northern Virginia, three hours before our flight to Warsaw, Poland is scheduled to depart. Our journey is primarily to read through family spy files, released for the first time by the Polish government.
The drive to the airport is about 15 minutes and we arrive early. That’s his style. The potential of anything going wrong at the airport is to be avoided at all costs, even if I have to miss out on sleep. I’m used to passing hours in airports with him. We’re flying business class, so we have a lounge with free stale cookies and mixed drinks. But instead we choose to pace. We walk up and down the long hallways of Dulles Airport, with me having to take almost two steps to his every step. I don’t ask him to slow down. I want him to work out that excess energy, the anxiety that sits so deeply within him. We may potentially learn some very dark family history, potentially find out which friends were not really friends, find out what we still can’t even anticipate. Sometimes family secrets are best left in the past.
Once in Warsaw, we rent a small apartment that looks out onto the old castle courtyard, in historic old town. I stroll the streets in the evening for hours, listening to musicians at every corner and hearing the chatter of Polish lingering around me. I like how I don’t exist here. No one knows who I am or why I am here. I spend my mornings sitting in the large open window with a deep sill, hearing the sweeping of the streets, the click of high heels on the cobblestones below, the dance of pigeons on the rooftops. I look into the apartments across the way, and spend hours one evening watching a tall woman in white overalls paint the room a deep, dark blue. The voyeur in me is captivated in being able to look into these lives, so different from my own, simply because I was pulled out of all this at the age of three.
Family Spy Files
My father and I enter the silent high-ceilinged room where a stack of brown files tied with cream ribbons waits. The historian checks our passports, noting down the numbers and details carefully. He moves too slowly, as if building a tension that could only be broken by a group of men knocking down the door and dragging us to a holding cell. How many rooms out there contain as many secrets? Although I try to maintain my American sense of safety, I feel violated already. The eyes of the historian capture all the countless eyes that have been watching my bloodline for decades, pulling me into distant times of distrust until I feel like I’m alone in a strong sand-storm, with the tiny grains of sand grinding into my skin, my eyes, forcing me to curl up within my own body on the desert floor. The sand almost dulls my intrigue over the fact that I’m about to read late-night interrogations of my family members by the Polish secret police and by the KGB. The room’s large window overlooking a busy street reassures me, but the space holds a hint of burnt out homes, late night invasions, and musty smoked cigarettes.
Full text and additional photos are downloadable below:
| familyspyfiles.pdf |
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All images and writing are copyrighted. These stories will be published by 2012.
Printed version available upon request.
All feedback and comments are welcome. Please send to blissmeander at gmail.com
All images and writing are copyrighted. These stories will be published by 2012.
Printed version available upon request.
All feedback and comments are welcome. Please send to blissmeander at gmail.com
